folded neatly in my locker.

That was Caelum's revenge, and I knew it. I had expected him to be more mature, and let little things—not exactly little things, but minor mistakes—go but it wasn't the case.

I had woken up bright and early on Monday morning—not wanting to go to school, but preferring the liveliness of school over the emptiness of my house. Standing from my bed, I stretched lazily before walking towards my closet to take out my uniform.

After finishing my morning routine, I grabbed my bag and walked to the kitchen to have my breakfast alone, as usual, before going to my car. I arrived at school five minutes earlier, so I quietly sat in the parking lot and went through my phone.

When the first bell rang, I walked out of the car, my bag hoisted over my shoulder and my jacket in one hand. Although the weather outside had been chilly, I knew it wouldn't be the same inside the school building.

I made my way to the locker room and changed into my gym wear. I hated gym class, and I had no idea why it was my first class on Monday.

The fact that we had to change into our gym wear within five minutes and change back into our school uniforms after an hour made me furious. Since most of the girls chose to reapply their makeup and do whatever they did after gym class in the locker room stalls, I had to either change in the middle of the locker room or wait for those girls, which was never an option.

On reaching the gym, my eyes involuntarily sought for Caelum. He was sitting in his spot on the bleachers, reading a book. Caelum liked to read. I quickly averted my eyes away from him when I spotted Coach.

Coach had chosen a game for us to play, and I giggled silently at the name. We were going to play 'boccer.'

We hadn't played 'boccer' before, so he gave a rundown on what to do and what not to do. Like the name, boccer was a good 'ol game of soccer and basketball. What made it different was whenever the ball touched the ground, soccer was played, and whenever the ball was kicked up in the air and caught in the hand, basketball was played.

I played soccer a bit, especially with my dad when he was alive, but I didn't know how to play basketball. All I knew about basketball was that the ball had to go inside the hoop no matter what happened.

I didn't want to set up the equipment and involve myself in awkward discussions with people I had never talked to, nor did I want to go sit on the bleachers like Caelum and get yelled at by Coach, so I walked to the middle of the gym and stood like the other students.

Minutes later, Coach gathered all the active students together and picked two guys and two girls out.

"The four of you are the team leaders," he'd said. "So, pick ten players each for your teams."

There were players worse than me in my gym class, so I wasn't been picked last—much to my relief. Team A and Team B were the first teams to begin the game, so the rest of us had to go sit on the bleachers to watch them. I enjoyed watching the game, but I had a feeling something was going to go wrong. I just didn't know when.

The first team won, and Coach yelled at my team and the fourth team to take our positions and start the game. My team leader, Hendrix, placed me beside him and my face caught fire. Not literally, of course. So yeah, the blush on my face was partly because I'd had a tiny crush on him once upon a time, but mostly because my nerves were kicking in.

Coach blew the whistle, and the game started with a kick-off by Hendrix to our teammates. The ball was dribbled and passed down the court for a bit, but before I had the time to think, somebody kicked the ball to me and I ended up catching it.

At that point, I was lost on what to do, until Coach yelled something like, "McCready, pass the ball to your teammates or put the ball in the hoop!"

Looking around, I threw the ball to some girl who shrieked and threw it back to me before turning to Hendrix who was mouthing 'place the ball in the hoop!'

My internal fangirl immediately came to life, and I walked two steps like Coach had earlier stated in the rules before throwing the ball.

Two words. Wrong fucking decision. Well, three words.

The ball didn't fall into the hoop like it was supposed to. It landed with a loud thud on Caelum's head. I was pissed that he had decided to stroll around the basketball court today of all days. When I'd earlier said Caelum didn't participate in gym class, I had meant he didn't even stand up from the bleachers unless he had to leave the class.

I returned my eyes to Caelum's only to see him staring daggers at me. I mouthed a 'sorry' to him, but he packed his things instead and stormed out of the gym. I had a feeling he thought I hit him with the ball purposely, but I averted my attention back into the game after Coach yelled at me for what I did.

It was a mistake, for crying out loud!

When the bell rang, I sprinted—more like fast-walked—to the locker room as I thought about the joys of not changing in the middle. After picking a stall, I opened my locker and immediately sucked in a sharp breath at the sight in front of me. Placing a finger in my locker to check if I was hallucinating or if this was reality, I swiftly withdrew it when I realized that the only uniform I had with me, in school, was soaking wet.

It was at that exact point I concluded that Caelum was out to seek revenge. I didn't see any use sprinting to the locker room earlier. It seemed I was spending my entire day here.

Making my way to the empty bench, I scoffed internally when I received pitiful stares from the girls. I didn't even know half of them.

I felt a light tap on my shoulders. "Hey."

"Oh, hi, Melanie." I sent her a small wave before going back to thinking. I didn't want Emery to feel bad about what her brother did, so I decided not to text her. But Emery was the only one I was that close enough with to ask for a spare uniform. What was I going to do?

"Hello." Melanie waved her hands in front of my face. "Can you at least pretend like you're excited to see me?"

"I'm sorry," I apologized, though I had no idea why I felt the need to do so.

"You know," she said. "I saw what happened in the gym."

I nodded slowly. "I didn't know we had gym together."

She shrugged. "I sit at the other side of the bleachers, and I don't take part in the games, but that's aside from the fact. I came here because I have a spare—"

My ears perked up at the mention of a spare, and I cut her off before she could speak. "Thank you so much, Melanie! You're a lifesaver."

"But—"

"I thought I was going to spend my entire day in the locker room."

"Dae—"

"Then you came, and everything changed," I rambled on. "I'll do anything to show you how grateful I am."

"Maybe you should let me complete a sentence first, yeah?" she asked.

I grinned sheepishly. "Totally! You should continue talking."

"Thank you." When she saw I wouldn't interrupt her, she resumed, "It's an old uniform and I don't know if it's your size. But I have to get to class, so come with me to my locker."

Melanie draped the uniform on my shoulder and I could only manage a "thanks" before she scurried to her class. Feeling smug, I went to an empty stall to have a quick shower.

Sure Caelum drenched my clothes in an unknown liquid, he didn't have the last laugh. Melanie lent me her old uniform hence, the rest of my day wouldn't be spent in the locker room. Plus, I could always get rid of the smelly liquid from my uniform by dry-cleaning it.

Melanie's uniform fit me snugly, although there was a sizeable difference between mine and hers. I was slightly taller than her and this was an old uniform, so when the grey skirt stopped higher than my mid-thigh, I wasn't surprised. My legs looked longer, and her white shirt fit me like a second skin. The new uniform accentuated my curves and though I felt a tad bit uncomfortable, I liked it.

Making a mental note to come back for my uniform, I quickly knotted my tie and put my damp hair in a bun. There were 20 minutes left of English Class and I didn't see the need to go make a fool out of myself, so I went to the library. When the next bell rang, I groaned loudly when I remembered I had AP US History with Caelum.

Why was I this unlucky?

On entering the class, I felt stares from all directions to which I paid no attention to, my eyes fixed on Caelum. His dark eyes ran over my body in one quick motion and my insides tingled, but before I could interpret his small reaction, his eyes returned to stare at me blankly. It was terrifying how he could wipe the emotions from his eyes in a matter of seconds, but I knew I'd be damned if I let my fear show.

Gaining whatever little courage I had left, I began walking in his direction since I still had to sit with him because of our project. Realizing we were staring down at each other, I decided to be the mature person by looking away.

"Caelum," I greeted, plopping down on the chair and dropping my bag on the floor beside me.

"Daesyn," he casually replied like he didn't do something bad moments ago.

This was the first time Caelum called my name, and I melted. Sure, it wasn't a big deal, but I smiled inwardly when I smelt progress in the air. If the creepy expressions showed on my face, he didn't let me know.

"You know the boccer incident was a mistake, right?" I asked, wanting to clear things up a bit first.

"Don't know, don't care," he muttered.

"So, you drenched my clothes in some liquid, for what reason?" I asked, not expecting an answer. "You blew things out of proportion, and I didn't see any reason why you had to do it."

"It's already done," he said.

"Well, you shouldn't have done it," I countered. "It still makes little sense to me."

He smirked. "You should be grateful I didn't rip them to shreds."

The smirk was, once again, the first expression—other than glaring, frowning, or scowling, I'd received from him.

When he smirked, I noticed he had dimples.

Until now, I'd never looked at Caelum, I mean really look. We hung out almost every day mainly because of Emery, but I'd never noticed how slanted his eyes looked, or how the bags beneath his eyes showed how tired he was. His eyebrows were bushy but nicely carved, he had long eyelashes, prominent cheekbones, and a well-defined square jaw.

How could a person be this beautiful?

"Why do you keep staring at me like that?"

Oh, my goodness, I zoned out. "Um..." I said. "Just commiting to memory the profile of an asshole. You know, so if I'm ever called upon in art to draw one, I'd have some inspiration."

Although he couldn't reply because Mr. Sean walked in, he was capable of sending a mean glare my way.

Mr. Sean talked on and on about the project until I zoned out. We still had three weeks left to complete the project.

I had initially thought I was going to do the project alone considering the amount of hatred Caelum had for me, but I was wrong and we were almost done with it. Something that surprised me when doing the project was how smart he was.

Excluding his bad and grumpy attitude, he was actually a pretty decent guy. Thoughts like that spiked my curiosity level and made me want to uncover his deepest secrets. I was going to do it, whether he liked it or not.

During lunch, I collected my food and casually walked towards Emery's table, like I had been doing throughout last week.

Also, I had gotten closer to both Melanie and Clara, and they were friendly people.

Clara was more reserved, and she had a boyfriend who was already in college. The last time Clara, Emery, and I went to the mall, and she said she had some urgent work to do, she went out with her boyfriend, Luke.

Melanie was more outgoing. She talked a lot, about anything and everything, and she had this huge crush on Caelum. I didn't blame her, though. Caelum was attractive. But Emery said whatever thing Melanie had for Caelum was a borderline obsession.

She had been rejected multiple times on multiple occasions, but she still believed she had a chance. I hadn't seen her with Caelum, but I was expecting to get a pleasant laugh out of it.

"What happened to your uniform?" Emery asked immediately I sat.

I rolled my eyes as I narrated everything to her. She was furious at Caelum and apologized on his behalf. I convinced her that there was no need confronting him since we'd already sorted the issue out in History—we both knew I was lying.

She narrowed her eyes for a bit, and when she saw I wasn't budging, she gave up. I didn't want her to confront Caelum since there was a possibility of him doing worse things and I wanted to be the mature one by ignoring him.

All in all, nothing was going to change. Caelum was always going to be Caelum.

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